Dermot Cahill, Jing Wang

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 8 (2024), Issue 2, Page 92 - 100

This article considers the European Commission’s approach to tackling various Apple anti-competitive strategies. It considers why the European Commission has not applied excessive pricing abuse of dominance jurisprudence to challenge Apple’s high commission fees charged to app developers, instead preferring to use a variety of other approaches to restore competition to certain parts of Apple’s closed ecosystem. Keywords: excessive pricing; abuse of dominance; Gatekeeper; Digital Markets Act; Apple

Seppe Maes, Helena Verspagen

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 8 (2024), Issue 2, Page 126 - 130

Annotation on the Judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition) in Case T-136/19 Bulgarian Energy Holding v Commission [2023] EU:T:2023:669 On 25 October 2023, the General Court annulled a Commission Decision regarding an alleged abuse of a dominant position by Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and its subsidiaries for obstructing access to the transmission network, the Romanian Pipeline 1 and the UGS Chiren storage facility to potential entrants. The Commission’s Decision was annulled in its entirety by the General Court based mainly on an incorrect finding of abuse of a dominant position and an infringement of the rights of defence. 1

Georgia D. Theodorakopoulou

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 7 (2023), Issue 3, Page 154 - 165

Abstract: The AEC principle could be conceived as the other side of a competition policy serving to protect competition on the merits. The principle is of primal significance to Article 102 TFEU, which the CJEU has long interpreted as applying not only to the exploitation of market power vis-à-vis customers and suppliers, but also to conduct having as its object or effect the exclusion of actual or potential competitors. The exit from the market of less efficient competitors seems to be in sync with long standing policies. However, a more nuanced interpretation of the AEC principle providing for the protection of potential and not yet as-efficient competitors would reinforce competition on the merits.

Martin Toskov

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 7 (2023), Issue 2, Page 125 - 128

Case T-286/09 RENV Intel Corporation v Commission, Judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition) of 26 January 2022 Just over a year ago, the General Court (GC) handed down its second judgment of the Intel saga. The judgment largely follows the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) findings from 2017.1 The case centres around the conditional rebates Intel used in its dealings with trading partners. Specifically, the place of the as-efficient-competitor (AEC) test in non-price-based abuses of dominance under Article 102(c) TFEU2 and the role of effects-based analyses in fidelity rebates. The new, more effects-based approach adopted by the GC is both welcome and necessary. It ensures that EU competition law encourages, rather than dampens, entrepreneurship and is thus a tool fit to guide the EU through the current economic difficulties.

Matthias Nordmann, Caglagül Koz

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 6 (2022), Issue 1, Page 24 - 34

Case law demonstrates that the need for competition law decreased over the years, as the Groundhandling Directive became more settled in the EU market. This is especially true for certain areas that are addressed in the Groundhandling Directive in a very detailed manner or related case law, such as the type of the fee that the airport operator can ask from the ground­handling service providers or the potential exemptions for the airport operators to limit access to the market. However, this does not mean that there is no need for competition law oversight at all. In fact, competition law – forming the basis of the Groundhandling Directive - looks after competition in the market even beyond the requirements of the Groundhandling Directive. This means that there will be always need for competition law. Keywords: abuse of dominance, groundhandling, airport operators

Francesco Rizzuto

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 6 (2022), Issue 2, Page 154 - 166

Case C-117/20 bpost SA and Case C-151/20 Nordzucker AG, Zudzucker AG, Agrana Zucker GmbH, Judgments of the Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) of 22 March 2022 The Court of Justice of the European Union in two Grand Chamber rulings has overturned its established case law on the conditions that must be satisfied in order for the protection against double jeopardy provided by Article 50 of the EU Charter of Fundamental rights to be applicable. The controversial and doctrinally weak third condition concerning the identity of the legal interest , in addition to the identity of the facts and persons, has now been abandoned. It has been replaced by the legal exception rule provided for in Article 52 of the Charter. In essence, this means that the double jeopardy rule will not be infringed by enforcers of EU Competition Law in parallel or subsequent enforcement proceedings including complementary proceedings and penalties based on distinct legal grounds as long as the requirements of Article 52, as clarified by the Court are respected. The rulings thus ends EU Competition law enforcement exceptionalism compared two other areas of EU law regarding the conditions that must be met in order for the protection against ‘criminal’ proceedings and penalties to be satisfied.

Jeroen Dewispelaere, Janek Tomasz Nowak

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 6 (2022), Issue 4, Page 318 - 321

Yves Botteman, Daniel Barrio

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 4 (2020), Issue 1, Page 49 - 53

Case C-177/16 Autortiesību un komunicēšanās konsultāciju aģentūra / Latvijas Autoru apvienība v Konkurences padome, Judgement by the Court of Justice of the European Union of 14 September 2017 On the appropriate methods to determine whether the rates charged by a collecting society which enjoys a legal monopoly are excessive, whether such excess is ‘appreciable’ pursuant to Article 102(a) TFEU and the possible justifications for such excessive rates. Article 102 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); OJ 2008 L115/47.

Michele Giannino

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 4 (2020), Issue 1, Page 36 - 39

Case A519 Affidamento diretto del servizio di trasporto pubblico ferroviario nel Veneto (Veneto Rail Transport), Decision of the Italian Competition Authority of 31 July 2019

Anastasios A. Antoniou

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 4 (2020), Issue 1, Page 23 - 26